India to launch second moon mission without Russia

The Chandrayaan-II project was originally envisaged to be a joint mission between ISRO and Roscosmos. Source: NASA

Technical differences will not allow the two countries to cooperate on the Chandrayaan-II project.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) decided not to
continue cooperation with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) in
Chandrayaan-II, India’s second moon mission, Indian media publications
reported.

Chandrayaan-II is the follow-on to India’s first unmanned
lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, which successfully reached lunar orbit in late 2008
and operated for almost a year before overheating caused a premature
termination of the mission that was nonetheless declared a success, according
to Space News.

The Chandrayaan-II project was originally envisaged to be a
joint mission between ISRO and Roscosmos. Under the agreement approved by the Indian
Government in September 2008, while ISRO was to provide for the launch by its
workhorse, GSLV, as also the orbiter and the rover, the Russian agency was to
provide the lander, the Deccan Herald said. The mission was scheduled for the
current year, but sources told the paper that it was pushed back to 2016.

Russia encountered a problem in the wake of the Phobos-Grunt
fiasco when the spacecraft it launched in November 2011 to retrieve soil
samples from the Martian moon Phobos, became stuck in Earth's orbit after its
engines failed to fire and crashed back to Earth. The Russian agency reviewed
their inter-planetary missions and decided to increase the mass of the moon
lander.

Roscosmos consequently suggested to ISRO two opportunities
for launching of its Chandrayaan-II rover - either 2015 or 2017 aboard Soyuz,
the Russian spacecraft with a rider that the 2015 opportunity could involve
mass limitation for the rover and entitle a higher risk, according to the Deccan
Herald report.

India’s Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V
Narayansamy reported recently to the country’s upper house of parliament that
Russia was out of the Chandrayaan-II mission since certain changes suggested by
Roscosmos would lead to a major programmatic realignment, the Deccan Herald
said. The revised plan necessitated an increase in the mass of the lander,
which would have required the ISRO to decrease the mass, and consequently the
reliability of its rover, the paper cited Narayanasamy as saying.

A review by an expert panel, headed by former ISRO chairman
U R Rao, recommended indigenous development of the lander module. Experiments
on the lander are being carried out, and the spacecraft is being reconfigured,
according to the report.

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“There was a failure that Russia experienced. After that, the lander has become
heavier, which is not something we can carry on our launch vehicle,” Rao was
quoted by the paper as saying.

“The integrated review of Chandrayaan-II recommended that
India could realize the Lander module in the next few years,” Narayanasamy said,
according to the paper. “Currently the spacecraft is being reconfigured
for the proposed Indian Rover and Lander modules.”

According to the minister, ISRO has already made some
progress with the development of rover module and a few scientific instruments
to be flown to the Moon.

Narayanasamy said the details of changes in the
configuration and the mission profile were being finalised and the payloads of
the lander would be finalised in due course taking into account the weight,
volume and power constraints of the lander, according to a report in The Hindu.